Once upon a time...

About a month ago, I was extended a calling to serve as a Mia Maid Advisor in our ward. I was thrilled to accept, especially when I found out I would be serving alongside some of my favorite new friends here in Tucson!

 

Today in Young Womens, we had an amazing lesson taught by my friend Cassy. Her lesson touched me so much that I wanted to write down what I learned from it so I could always remember it.   

 

The lesson was about how we are all living our own fairytale right now. When you think of fairytales, you probably first think of magic, wealth and happily ever afters. In our fairytale, we all are children of a king and right now we are in a far away kingdom living this mortal existence. But we are royalty, sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father and because we are, we do have magic in our lives. The magic comes in the form of miracles we experience, ranging from the small things that fall into place daily without us even realizing how they are coming together to the large things that we can look back on and see how magical they truely were.

 

I was also reminded that in every fairytale, there is a villain waiting to swoop in and steal that happily ever after right out from under the beautiful princess. That villain is Satan in our lives. He is always right there to tell us that we aren't good enough, pretty enough, wealthy enough, smart enough, succesful enough, skinny enough and well you get the point. He is the cunning witch with the poisonous apple, the abusive stepmother ready to degrade and condescend at every turn, the sea witch promising us what we think we want in exchange for what precious gifts we have, secretly waiting to trick and enslave us. All fairytales I've read end with the bad guy getting what was coming to him. However, there are no guarantees our story will end that way so we have to be strong, courageous and brave.  Satan won't be triumphant in the end unless we let him. We choose how our story turns out by the choices we make each day. We can recognize Satan's lies, fight him off with our inherited spiritual gifts, because we all have it in us to be triumphant over the villain. Satan is never going to have our back, send in reinforcements to help us or be there when we get trapped by our choices and have to face consequences. But our Heavenly Father will be, he wants to defend and protect us against the enemy forces. He has a great army ready and willing to fight with us if we we will choose the right side of the battle. He also has a vast wealth to share and bless us with.

 

We aren't trapped in some tower, waiting to be rescued so we can live happily ever after. We are on a path, living our once upon a time and working toward our ever after. If we get off the path, we have the Savior to help us get back on and continue our journey.  Also, we don't need to wait to be happy until the end of the story, we can choose to be happy now.

 

So, my once upon a time is now. I won't let the bad guy win and I will continue to remind myself that I am a princess of the most high king. My Heavenly Father loves me, thinks I am more than enough  and wants me to reach for everything he has ever dreamed of for me. I am writing my own fairytale and I want it to be worth reading!